Disclaimer: Minor spoilers."Inu-Oh" was my most-anticipated film of Montreal's 2022 Fantasia Film Festival, a big deciding factor for me to attend the festival for the first time. I jumped the gun a bit, since GKIDS would give a limited release in Canada just a couple weeks later, so my braving Montreal's downtown was for naught. But given that this was one of the few movies to have a nearly full audience in the largest theater screen, it was clear I wasn't the only one looking forward to the movie. After all, Masaaki Yuasa was a cult-icon in animation, and this was said to be his final movie before retirement, just a few years after co-founding his animation studio Science Saru. And this movie in particular was shrouded in mystery.The director isn't shy to try new ideas for stories, and "Inu-Oh" has a strange story indeed. It goes back to Japan's roots, in Yuasa's most personal film yet in terms of cultural identity and topic. Specifically, Noh performers from Japan many centuries ago, those musicians that sing stories of history and dance to act them out (occasionally yelping the iconic "YOOOOOH!" in between verses). The story would be about two such young performers from 14th century Japan, one blind and one disfigured, who go on to become massive successes through this art. Calling them the "rock stars" of their era, this was described as a "historical rock-opera musical." As good a one-line description as I've ever heard. I'll take a risk in spoiling some of the story. It starts by describing Japan as one of multiple states at war with each other. One of the rulers believes that if he collects three specific sacred treasures, they would validate him as the true ruler to unify Japan. His representitives travel to a small fishing village, were they dreamed one such treasure was hidden in the river. A father and his intrepid son find the treasure, a gleaming sword with a thirst for blood: when the father unsheathes it to take a look, it cuts the son's eyes blind, and slices the father in two. The representitives quietly take the covered sword back to their master, leaving a grieving mother to wonder what the purpose was to lose a husband and permanently damage her only child. That child is Tomona, and haunted by the ghost of his father, he is compelled to travel, blind, to find the purpose of the sword and to publically make known the crime against them. As he grows, he discovers Noh musicians, all of whom are also blind, and takes up the craft himself. He's quite good too. And the art of musical storytelling might be the way to tell his story, although like most teenagers, he's more occupied with his current success and training in the Noh troupe, opposed to what his nagging ghost father wants him to do. He then comes across another boy with no name, who we later know as "Inu-Oh" (translates to "King of the Dogs"). He's born as a deformed monster, with a hideous face and irregular limbs that make him look like a walking spider. His family keeps him in secret, covering him in a mask and baggy clothing, treating him as one of the family dogs (not even giving him a name), while the father focuses on his other sons to train them in the art of Noh dancing. Inu-Oh has accepted his place in life, occassionally running through the town to scare everyone for fun. He them comes across Tomona, who doesn't treat him harshly (being blind, he can't see his appearance anyhow). And he likes his music, finding a new passion in dance himself. As this new friendship blooms, they discover that many Heike clan ghosts, not just Tomona's dad, are specifically haunting Inu-Oh, and might be the cause of his cursed form. When Inu-Oh dances, specifically while telling the spirits' stories, a part of his body transforms back to normal. They see an opportunity to create a special performance, both to help Inu-Oh appear normal, but also for the pair to find massive success as artists. ... and then, about halfway through the movie, we break into pure musical for the remainder of the story. It's as much a love letter to Noh performance and what it could be capable of, as it is a satire of modern rock stars like the Rolling Stones or Aerosmith. Tomona tosses his traditional performance clothing for a shirtless appearance, long hair, makeup and perfume ("he smells like a prostitute!" excalims a blind co-musician in horror). He performs on a public crossing bridge, for several minutes in the movie, with a modern rock ballad of Inu-Oh, the cursed man that must tell the stories of the ghosts around him. It's an opener and advertisement for the real performance, given that night under the bridge with Inu-Oh himself as the dancer and co-singer. Both the performance's production values and creativity in props and costume are electric, the show is a success, and Inu-Oh partially transforms. This repeats under different circumstances three times, garnering nationwide fame, both good and bad. 
Even if it sounds strange on paper, there's no denying that a musical opera from Yuasa sounds tremendously exciting. And the performances on screen are the best part of the movie. The three main songs tend to use the same melody from Tomona, which drags on a bit longer than it should each time, but the song is catchy enough that I didn't mind. And it isn't just the melody, the lyrics, or the dancing that makes the movie, but all of it together as one performance, each an important part. And as the duo become more like rock starts, with thousands of cheering and fainting fans, it gets funnier, as it slowly leads to a climax. I can't stress how creative the production ideas are for the performances, especially when accounting for limited technology for the time. A movie ticket to "Inu-Oh" is a ticket to a concert unlike anything you've ever seen.At first, it seems like "Inu-Oh" will have a happy ending, but it takes a turn in the final epilogue, becoming more violent, and ultimately ending in tragedy. Afterall, what is an opera without a sad finale, especially in an old Japan where a shogun could have men beheaded for the smallest grievance? It was necessary to follow-up on certain plot threads, but also leaves a lot of story holes unfilled and unanswered. Perhaps this was just following the novel the movie is based on. Perhaps this was to make the movie's place in history more clear. It's a profound and sudden ending that nails the importance of staying true to yourself and the art you wish to create and the stories you need to tell, without compromise, no matter how great the cost. I can't help but wonder if this is Yuasa's cynical take on the modern industry, but I might be overthinking it. Whatever the meaning, while the ending is beautiful, it felt like a lot was missing to properly end the story, and the sudden dark shift in tone will make it divisive among even Yuasa's biggest fans. Science Saru had defined its style with the use of Adobe Flash, resulting in smooth, clean, colorful designs, while also being a little simplistic. With "Inu-Oh," Yuasa goes back to his roots, and the movie looks like it was produced with paint and charcol and pencil. It's a cross between his older works like "Mind Game" and "Ping-Pong - The Animation." This means there's a deliberate choice to use a washed-out color palette to represent old Japan, and a lot of closeups of dancing bare feet and crooked singing teeth; the movie seems to celebrate the ugliness of human bodies through animation, while also simply representing how Japanese people looked and dressed at the time. There's isn't a lot of opportunity for elaborate animation sequences, even during the performances, aside from one standout 3D camera pan of a noble's court late in the movie. In short, the movie looks good and detailed, but also ugly and somewhat low-budget, where the clear purpose of the movie was the story and the music rather than the pure visuals. This might have been a missed opportunity, given the magical-realism of the story. The end credits even have a variety of cute dancing spirit balls, while the movie only had generic red sprites... perhaps even Yuasa realised too late that he could have put more of his trademark style in the movie like this. The music is a blast, if a bit repetitive (the comparison I'd make is to a literal Italian opera: it's beautiful, but too long and traditional and might cause some people to fall asleep after a while). The music justifies the price of admission, and strengthens the arguement to see the original Japanese dub, as I did. Even the in-production English dub claims they'll keep the songs in the original language. Regardless, you'll get a great performance from the Japanese actors here, and it works better with the movie's time period. I think "Inu-Oh" is somewhere in the bottom half of my personal rankings of Yuasa's work. Even if it isn't my favorite, I still recognize it as a work of art, and as a great sendoff for the director with a powerful message for budding artists to think about.